The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com NEWS BRIEFS DETROIT From Page 1 DETROIT Feds to probe Ford cars for stalling The National Highway Traf- fic Safety Administration says it will investigate problems with stalling or surging engines in nearly 725,000 Ford cars and SUVs. The probe affects Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs and Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan sedans from the 2009 through 2011 model years. The vehicles can unexpect- edly go into "limp home mode" at reduced power, the agency said in documents posted Mon- day on its website. NHTSA and Ford have received almost 1,500 complaints about the problem. There were three crashes and one injury. NEW YORK Stocks drop in sync with Italy's chaos Stocks are having a bad flash- back to last spring, when fears about the European debt crisis sent the market spiralinglower. On Monday, election results in Italy showed a race too close to call, leaving investors fearful that the country will struggle to form a government that can move for- ward with reforms to revive the economy. The Dow Jones industrial aver- age posted its worst drop in more than three months. The Standard & Poor's 500, which had its first weekly decline of the year last week, piled on more losses Mon- day. ROME Italy faces political gridlock after crucial election The prospect of political paral- ysis hung over Italy on Monday as near complete official results in crucial elections showed -an upstart protest campaign led by a comedian making stunning inroads, and mainstream forces of center-left and center-right wrestling for control of Parlia- ment's two houses. The story of the election in the eurozone's third largest economy was shaping up to be the aston- ishing vote haul of comic-turned- political leader Beppe Grillo, whose 5 Star Movement has capi- talized on a wave of voter disgust with the ruling political class. Another surprise has been the return as a political force of bil- lionaire media mogul Silvio Ber- lusconi, who was forced from the premiership at the end of 2011 by Italy's debt crisis, and whose forces now had a strong chance of coming out on top in the Ital- ian Senate. His main rival, the center-left Pier Luigi Bersani, appeared headed toward victory in Parliament's lower house. -Compiled from Daily wire reports lot of enticing incentives, includ- ing very cheap housing, Ros- ner said. He also pointed out Detroit's unique ability to allow a college student a high level of impact on a major city. "If you go and do your job, whatever it may be, in New York or L.A., or a high-density city with a lot of people doing a lot of different things, the likelihood that you're going to positively impact the environment around you in the city and the citizens around you is quite low," Ros- ner said. "The interesting thing about Detroit is because the innovation happening in the city is only just recently start- ing to reboot itself, the ability for someone to make an impact in the community or within a sector of business in the city is highlylikely." Rosner said he was "infatu- ated with the culture" of Detroit and worries that a combination of fear and ignorance is prevent- ing students from experiencing the city. "Don't get me wrong, the city is still dangerous, and there's cities all around the world that are dangerous, and so it's not like the negative stigmas aren't true, but there's a lot between the lines that exists that's really exciting," Rosner said. LSA junior Morgan Princing, a co-creator of Detroit Wolver- ine, participated in the Semester in Detroit program last spring and plans to return again this summer. She agreed that stu- dents' fears about Detroit may be too harsh. "It's just more or less like another city, and you have to be, you know, safe as you are any- where," Princing said, "I wasby no means discouraged by it." Both Princing and Rosner said the benefits of working in Detroit far outweigh the risks, and they encourage students to get involved in the city as much as possible. "Detroit just has a lot of per- sonality, and I think there's a lot of ways that Detroit kind of inspires people," Princing said. "The whole do-it-yourself cul- ture can be very inspiring." In the future, Detroit Wolver- ine wants to partner with other Detroit-focused groups on cam- pus to increase access to the city for the students. Specific goals include a Detroit internship fair, increased transportation to the city and "Friday Nights in the D" weekend outings. High-stakes trial begins over 2010 Gulf oil spill PHYSICIANS From Page 1 who have neurological disorders, so my reputation is important, but people come to me because they have to," Jacobs said. Jacobs added that the honor demonstrates how far she and YOUMICH From Page 1 to come from." The party's goal is to create a collaborative environment. While increasing student con- nectivity seems like an abstract idea, Dishell said a tangible solution is creating a leader- ship network that would aim to bring student leaders together for issues and events and regular meetings. "This leadership network would be able to collaborate," Dishell said. "This leadership network would be able to sup- port each other, and it would be able to spread the information, so campus in a year is going to be a much more interconnected campus." Another goal of youMICH is to continue the entrepreneur- ial mindset of the current CSG administration. In particular, Proppe said youMICH would like to introduce an entrepre- neurship learning community. LSA junior Laurel Ruza said other platform promises include an MCard app for students' smartphones, a 24-hour caf on North Campus, and a survey that incoming students would take at orientation to connect them to FACULTY From Page 1 range from $5,000 to $15,000 per year. LEAD currently supports 127 students, including 40 fresh- men inducted in the past year. Coleman said the program also increases the success of recruiting out-of-state stu- dents, better matching efforts at University's in-state recruit- ment. "We also need to be able to recruit out-of-state (students), but oftentimes that problem is financial. That's why the LEAD scholarship is so important, which is why I'm encouraging it," Coleman said. The committee also addressed the possibility of working with the Business Leaders for Michigan round- table - which is composed of CEOs that are the state's larg- est job providers - to raise funds for the University. BLM is working on a stra- tegic plan to turn around the state's economy. Ten years ago, Michigan was a top-10 state in terms of job creation. Current- ly, it is in the bottom 10, having lost 800,000 jobs in the past 10 years. Hanlon said the source of support and funding that BLM is working toward providing is vital for improvingthe health of Michigan's economy by boost- ing the University's financial base. her department have come in the last few years. "I actually work with three other partners, but when I start- ed it was only me and it was hard because I worked in the ICU day and night by myself," Jacobs said. "Everything gets turned over to you, being critical care trained, but it helped me to see how to student organizations in which they mightbe interested. If youMICH were to lose the presidential election, Ruza said the party would still look to enact part of its platform. "As party chair I look to our presidential, vice presidential candidates to get a lot of the things done, but I also look to our representatives," Ruza said. "If we get some of our representa- tives - hopefully all of our rep- resentatives in CSG next year - they'll be able to fulfill some of our goals." Ruza said youMICH wants to see that its representative candi- dates have their own goals, too. Proppe boasts his experience as speaker of the assembly. "Now I'm ready to take that experience that I've had in the legislature and move over to the executive side of things," Proppe said. "Just seeing the process of writing a resolution getting this through and then carrying out the actions of that resolution is something that I don't think a lot of people get to see within CSG." Proppe added that he plans to use his experience to better engage assembly representatives. Throughout the course of assembly meetings, represen- tatives and CSG members are "It's great to have an exter- nal voice outside the Univer- sity making this case," Hanlon said. SACUA member Rachel Gold- man, an engineering and phys- ics professor, asked Coleman if BLM is interested in drawing investment for higher educa- tion in general or specific fields after hearing a claim that there is a corporate interest in creat- ing more engineering schools in the state. Coleman said support for higher education transcends engineering and covers all fields of education. "There have been a lot of concerns nationally for sci- ence, technology, engineer- ing and math ... (but) business leaders, in my opinion, have felt that a higher education investment is a good education investment in all fields, not narrowing the focus at all," Coleman said. "There is some evidence that suggests that students (who study liberal arts) will form critical skills that they will be very success- ful as leaders." Coleman also said diversity in education should be valued and sought after in a quickly globalizing and interdisciplin- ary world and academic envi- ronment. "We want to teach students that regardless of discipline, how do you think?" she said. "How do you solve problems? How do take the body of inter- disciplinary knowledge that Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - 3 better build our program, and how I could make the ICU better than ever before, which is what we're being recognized for." Jacobs said though the bar is constantly being raised, this recognition is "intrinsi- cally valuable" because it's an acknowledgment of the work she does every day. able to discuss projects they're working on or upcoming issues. Proppe said representatives are "underutilized" in these projects and issues. "You need to be proactive in approaching reps," Proppe said. "I think the assembly loves seeing the reps take charge on these sorts of things so giving them more opportunities to take charge on these sorts of things can go along way." Proppe had actually not con- sidered running for the position prior to accepting the nomina- tion. "I had initially expressed that I was not interested in the posi- tion," Proppe said. "I wanted to continue to play a role in CSG next year, but I wasn't sure what that would be." Proppe added that he felt com- pelled to run after he failed to see a "platform that resonated with what I wanted to accomplish." "I started to reconsider and, after chatting with aslot of other people, I'm really excited to be doing this and I wish I had made the decision earlier," he said. Ruza said Proppe's initial hesitancy toward springs from genuine intentions. youMICH also plans to run representatives in the March 27 and 28 elections. you gain and use it to work on a real world problem? And that involves many disciplines, not just one." After Coleman left the meet- ing, the committee discussed faculty retention within the University, and Hanlon said in the last academic year, the amount of faculty solicited by other universities grew for the third consecutive year. Over the past five or six years, the University won about 61 per- cent of cases, but over the past year won only 54 percent of the cases. Biology Prof. John Lehman asked Hanlon and Coleman about future advancement in the University's online course offerings. Hanlon said new mod- ules are going to change the way the University teaches by allowing for more active engagement with students, more student collaboration and a deeper understanding of how students learn most effi- ciently. "My dad was a country doc- tor (and) he had almost no tech- nology," Hanlon said. "I feel like in the teaching space we are back where my dad was, if you want to know whether a student is learning or not, you look at them and try and figure out that dear in the headlights look ... I think we are looking at a future where we can use tech- nology to see how students are learning." Attorney says BP ignored safety for profit NEW ORLEANS (AP) - BP put profits ahead of safety and bears most of the blame for the disastrous 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a U.S. Justice Department attorney charged Monday at the opening of a trial that could result in the oil company and its partners being forced to pay tens of billions of dollars more in damages. The London-based oil giant acknowledged it made "errors in judgment" before the deadly blowout, but it also cast blame on the owner of the drilling rig and the contractor involved in cementing the well. It denied it was grossly negligent, as the government contended. Thehigh-stakescivilcasewent to trial after attempts to reach an 11th-hour settlement failed. Eleven workers were killed when the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by the BP exploded on April 20, 2010. An estimated 172 millions of gallons of crude gushed into the Gulf over the three months that followed in the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Justice Department attorney Mike Underhill said the catas- trophe resulted from BP's "cul- ture of corporate recklessness." "The evidence will show that BP put profits before people, profits before safety and profits before the environment," Under- hill said in opening statements. He added: "Despite BP's attempts to shifttheblametoother parties, by far the primary fault for this disasterbelongs to BP." BP attorney Mike Brock acknowledged that the oil com- pany made mistakes. But he accused rig owner Transocean Ltd. of failing to properly main- tain the rig's blowout preventer, which had a dead battery, and he claimed cement contractor Halliburton used a "bad slurry" that failed to prevent oil and gas from travelingup the well. BP has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other criminal charges and has racked up more than $24 bil- lion in spill-related expenses, including cleanup costs, com- pensation for businesses and individuals, and $4 billion in criminal penalties. But the federal government, Gulf Coast states and individu- als and businesses hope to con- vince a federal judge that the company and its partners in the ill-fated drilling project are liable for much more in civil damages under the Clean Water Act and other environmental regulations. One of the biggest questions facing U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is hearing the case without a jury, is whether BP acted with gross negligence. Under the Clean Water Act, a polluter can be forced to pay a minimum of $1,100 per barrel of spilled oil; the fines nearly qua- druple to about $4,300 a barrel for companies found grossly neg- ligent, meaning BP could be on the hook for nearly $18 billion.